When exploring the cave, you will find two types of treasure chest (normal coloured red and artifact which is coloured yellow), moneybags, stat increase gems and enemies. You can only travel lower; there is no way to return to a previous floor. You can abort the quest by using the artifact 'Escape Wings' (which is found in a normal chest on floor 4 or any subsequent floor); this returns you to the cave entrance with all your money, artifacts and any stat increases you have obtained. Normal treasure disappears. You may repeat the quest as many times as you like, both before and after you finish the quest.
Movement[]
Movement is orthogonal only (left/right, up/down). Diagonal movement is not possible. You cannot move through objects like chests or moneybags (whether open or closed, you can move through open moneybags in the mobile version). Stat increase gems used and enemies when defeated disappear. You cannot move through walls; occasionally you will find enemies you cannot reach because they are blocked by an object or because they are in a walled-off section.
Combat[]
Combat is initiated by moving into the enemy's space. As two beings cannot occupy the same space, one must give way!
Two statistics are important here: attack and agility.
- If your attack rating is higher than your opponent's (current) hit points, you will kill it
- If your agility is higher than your opponent's, you will hit first
This has the effect that once you have a sufficiently high attack and agility ratings (from gems and equipment) it is possible to auto-kill an enemy without it having the chance to attack you.
Damage is random; the minimum damage is equal to your attack rating. Your defence rating reduces damage done to you. If you do not kill the enemy outright, it will deal damage to you.
Healing[]
Healing is obtained from 4 levels of health potions and the 3 levels of healing spells. The only other type of healing is the healing spell. If you abort the quest by using the escape wings, you will be healed to your maximum HP level.
Death[]
Death is final. If you die, you are returned to the main menu, and you lose anything you gained in the last quest you started. However, you still keep anything you got from using the Escape Wings on previous quests.
Loot[]
Money is dropped by monsters and can be found in moneybags. Selling unwanted equipment to the shopkeeper also gives money.
Items—equipment, potions and spells—are found in the normal (red) chests; artifacts (except for the Escape Wings) are found in the yellow chests. Artifacts are not unique (except for the Escape Wings and the Blade of the Chosen): it is possible to have multiple copies of the same artifact. The Escape Wings are one use only per quest; they will also disappear if you complete the quest by killing the Merchant on level 100.
Stat increase gems are the only way to improve your character apart from using better equipment. There are 6 gems:
- Orange: +1 to attack
- Lilac: +1 to defence
- Turquoise: +1 to intelligence
- White: +1 to agility
- Red: +2–5 to MaxHP
- Green: +1–3 to MaxMP
- Multi-coloured: +1 to any stat of your choice (or +10 to MaxHP/+2 to MaxMP.)